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Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#131

Post by 3A2D50 »

jjsz wrote: post #28

I've never met someone who was diagnosed with ADHD since their early years. It's always people like the one in this article. I have a few questions to ask people who have used amphetamines while exercising (cross training, cardio), having sex, meditating, or anything that raises your heart rate. How does it feel? Does it feel like running on an empty stomach on a Monday morning after having slept only 3 hours?

On the days that I workout in the morning I skip the first dosage.

You need to be very consciously aware of yourself, because it can be easy to forget about yourself. Buy a sphygmomanometer if you don't already have one so that you can regularly keep an eye on your blood pressure. Make certain that you are eating and drinking regularly. Finally, make sure that you are getting enough sleep.

NEVER take more then the prescribed amount; regardless of whether the medication is working or not. Certain foods can dampen the strength of the medication; particularly foods with citrus. The common tendency that I have seen, is to take another dosage because of the perceived lack of effect. This might just be the single most significant reason why people spiral out of control. Regardless of how they feel or perform, the medication is in their system, and by adding another dosage, will cause their tolerance to rise. The rise in tolerance will only make it that much more likely that person will experience the same scenario in the near future.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#132

Post by [deleted] »

etrain wrote: post #120
nikatwork wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The long working hours of many law firms existed before the widespread availability of adderall. Drugs have absolutely zero to do with it. They are merely a symptom of the underlying workaholic culture.

I had a friend whose grandfather was a hot shot lawyer at one of the largest international firms of his day in the 60s/70s/80s. She told me that he was a speed addict for close to 20 years. Long story short he got into a situation where he had to quit cold turkey and did, successfully. Substance abuse to get ahead is nothing new. Drugs are not as new as we pretend they are, and it's been common practice to abuse them…

[deleted]

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#133

Post by larrys »

rayiner wrote: post #81
pchivers wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't like the article either. The whole thing struck me as melodramatic and narcissistic. Perhaps there are intelligent commentaries to be written about this culture's abuse of Adderall, but this is not one of them.

> The whole thing struck me as melodramatic and narcissistic. She's a young aspiring writer living in New York City, as well as a UCLA grad... shouldn't be a surprise...

"She's a young aspiring writer living"

Which makes you wonder what parts are true in the story and what parts are enhanced for dramatic effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Frey

NYT also has a similar piece weekly called "Modern Love" typically by a writer with a screwed up love life that sometimes seems stranger than fiction.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#134

Post by loeg »

JohnBooty wrote: post #108
throwaway54-762 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your body acclimates itself to just about anything - the weather, sugar, MSG, even frequent shampooing or Chap-Stick usage. That doesn't mean those things are comparable to meth. Yes, of course, tolerance isn't indicative of meth. > Nobody I know feels that Adderall provides much of a high. Anecdotal, sure, but it seems like a heck of a statistical anomaly. I would respectively disagree. Yes, typical therapeutic do…

Haha. I'm afraid to look like I'm asking for my own recreational purposes, but what doses would that be? Again, this is anecdotal and doesn't prove anything, but when I've taken too much Adderall at once I haven't found it very pleasant at all. It wasn't fun and nothing about those dosages made me want to repeat the experience, much less experiment with even higher dosages. (For me, "too much" would be taking 15mg in…

  > Haha. I'm afraid to look like I'm asking for my own
  > recreational purposes, but what doses would that be?
GP here (separate work/home accounts). Anecdotally, I get a mild high from 10 mg of dextroamphetamine or adderall, and have experimentally taken as much as 30 mg. But I have zero tolerance; I've taken amphetamines less than ten times in my life.

  > Again, this is anecdotal and doesn't prove anything,
  > but when I've taken too much Adderall at once I haven't
  > found it very pleasant at all. It wasn't fun and nothing 
  > about those dosages made me want to repeat the 
  > experience, much less experiment with even higher 
  > dosages.
  > (For me, "too much" would be taking 15mg in a single 
  > dose. I know that's not a huge amount in the scheme of 
  > things.)
Yeah, at 20-30 mg there are definitely negative side effects; I wouldn't want to do anything social, like the article's author describes, at those doses.

  > > I agree that typical meth use is 
  > > very different from typical medical adderall use.
  >
  > I don't mean this rhetorically at all... what do you 
  > feel is the reason (or reasons) for this?
I think they are introduced to people differently, on average. I think adderall is primarily introduced to people as medicine by some authority figure the person respects (doctor), and they're likely to stick to their prescribed doses. Vs, I think meth is more frequently introduced as a fun energy drug (or advertised as MDMA), with vague dosages, unknown quality and purity, etc. Maybe meth users titrate until they feel good, which means escalating dosages quickly due to tolerance. (I can't speak from personal experience here.)

I think some minority of both adderall and meth users (ab)use the stimulants to try and overcome drowsiness and focus more on their work, like some college students (including article author). I think a fair number of people do this without any bad outcomes (myself included). But a fair number also escalate in response to tolerance, and this kind of use is problematic. Maybe awareness of tolerance, neurobiology, etc, would help? I read a lot of erowid before I ever consumed any drugs, but I also have pretty strong self-control, so I don't know that it would work for everyone.

Anecdotally, I don't even try to use amphetamines for productivity anymore because they don't clear from my system fast enough to avoid interfering with my sleep. I'm more productive for one day (if that), but less productive over a two-day period.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#135

Post by the_economist »

overgryphon wrote: post #100
the_economist wrote: post #92

You can boost productivity for a year or two with Adderall, but over a 10 year period most people will find that they perform better by staying off Adderall and other stimulants. And we are all in it for the long run, I think. After taking Adderall (or any stimulant) for long enough, you need the drug just to get to your baseline performance level. Add onto that the unproductive evenings, crashing on days off the pil…

Any data to back that 10 year claim? Equating any and all stimulant usage with unproductive evenings, crashing, mood swings, and malaise is pretty exaggerated.

I don't have data, just personal experience and observations of people around me who have used stimulants for prolonged periods of time. Adderall starts off with 10mgs/day, 20, 30, then 40 to get the same productivity.

I was mostly equating adderall use with that list of effects, not less stimulants.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#136

Post by joe_the_user »

jpxxx wrote: post #38
michaelochurch wrote: post #34

This made me sick. I don't know what's worst: the author's self-absorption, the victimization tone, or the fact that her colleagues had to do similar unhealthy shit in order to compete with her. It stinks the whole way. Using drugs to gain an unfair advantage over other people at work has unhealthy emotional side effects? Am I to be surprised by this?

Tone it down. This is a sober (heh) account of a young woman finding herself in a place she thought she'd never be, not a personal ad.

Uh yeah,

I am seriously surprised at HN seeing the comments here.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#137

Post by doctorstupid »

michaelochurch wrote: post #34

This made me sick. I don't know what's worst: the author's self-absorption, the victimization tone, or the fact that her colleagues had to do similar unhealthy shit in order to compete with her. It stinks the whole way. Using drugs to gain an unfair advantage over other people at work has unhealthy emotional side effects? Am I to be surprised by this?

Agreed, she's totally self-absorbed. I found 97 uses of the perpendicular pronoun, not including all the uses of 'me', 'my' and so on.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#138

Post by arbitrarywords »

systematical wrote: post #35

There is a smart way to do this and not be a complete moron like the author. I take adderall a few times a year and have been doing so since my senior year (2003) in high school and have never come close to this trainwreck. It's a simple approach: know exactly what you have to do before taking it, eat a meal before (since you will have no appetite), take them in the early morning (so you can sleep by night), and fina…

Yehhh, but... that's exactly what people say to themselves when they start. It won't happen to me because I (insert whatever here). Your brain may start to say different things without you really noticing, or if you do notice, it may seem to make a different sense later. You might want to have more safeguards than just this. An example of one is tell someone you trust what you are doing, talk to them about it, and write down somewhere, that if they tell you to stop you will stop. Even if they have changed. Even if they are a stupid idiot who doesn't understand anything and you don't even know why you were friends with them before etc. etc. etc. Slippery slope is slippery.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#139

Post by throwitawayz »

throwaway04583 wrote: post #126
benhebert wrote: post #56

The US refuses to admit that the real drug problem are prescriptions. The effects of prolonged adderall usage have not been studied and I can't imagine how it interacts with other medications. It's a schedule II narcotic with a high similar to cocaine. Keep your kids off of it.

I realize you're probably trolling, but just in case.. The 'high' of adderall is not even remotely similar to cocaine.

You haven't tried them both then. Adderall is just like cocaine, except longer lasting and smoother. I've tried both more than a few times.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#140

Post by catshirt »

icelancer wrote: post #95
catshirt wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

abusing unprescribed drugs makes you a "complete moron", but abusing unprescribed drugs in moderation makes you well informed. note taken.

Is it abuse if you use them for performance reasons and moderate it properly? Just because the distributors of the drug say it is abuse doesn't mean it is - they do not get to decide these things.

this is to my point. who then is the arbiter of abuse? OP?

x pills is fine, y pills is fine, z pills makes you a "complete moron".

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